


Harry (14)

by orphan_account



Series: failure by design [The Watson Vignettes] [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Kid John, Misogyny, Misunderstandings, POV Second Person, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry (14): "Ellie says, "Aw, here's your midget," and your stomach contracts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harry (14)

Harry (14)

 

The sun is hot on your back. Ellie’s trousers are smooth against your cheek. You stare past her and Lily at some boys playing footie in the furthest part of the school playground. They’re always playing footie, and they’re always staring after girls. Must be pretty boring.

“Would you swallow?” Lily asks, all hush-hush, head bowed down. “I mean, isn’t that disgusting?”

Ellie says nothing. Maybe she shrugs. You can’t see her, with your face in her lap. You like Ellie. You like her more than Lily. Lily is always talking about boys. Ellie is too, and she’s just as excited, but she’s quieter about it, and she can talk about other things too. It’s best when Sarah and Bree are there, but they’re both skiving off school today. Summer hols are close. You’re not skiving off; you don’t want to be home. Your mum drunk more often than not, and father… is father. Even though you completely go by ‘Harry’ now, he still hates you. You still wear long sleeves in summer. 

“Dunno,” you say. Lazily, you add, “Probably,” even though you have no idea what she’s talking about.

“Eww, really?!” Lily giggles. It’s shrill. “Would you really, Harry?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Course. Wouldn’t you?”

Lily gets all flustered and moves her hands about. “I, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve never…” When she glances towards the boys, you groan on the inside and bury your head further in Ellie’s lap. Of course it’s about boys. Mark kissed you last week, and it was boring. Boys are boring. Whatever. Next time you’ll say no.

A content sigh escapes your nose when Ellie begins scratching her nail over the back of your neck. Her other hand is fiddling with the laces of your scarf. It brushes against the skin of your throat, and something moves through your body when it does, like tickling. There’s warmth inside you that’s different from the sun’s warmth. It feels like it’s in your blood, not just on your skin. Like goose bumps. Like goose bumps on your blood. It’s _lovely_.

You could do that all day.

Ellie stops. You make a disgruntled sound, but Ellie says, “Aw, it’s your midget,” and your stomach contracts. You take another moment to steel yourself and then sit up, turn around.

John is walking towards you, his two friends in tow. They’re weirdos. They’re taller than John—not hard, that—but the fat one is always talking about insects, and the other one is quiet and doesn’t say much. John likes odd things, but other than that, he’s a normal kid. Well. Half-way. You guess he’s nice enough, and he doesn’t have many friends, and lately he’s started having quite a quick mouth and sometimes doesn’t know when to shut up, and he’s always wearing horrible jumpers, but he’s clever, and he’s a good boy.

He’s a good boy.

“Hey, John,” you say. “What you up to?”

“I have your lunch,” he says and holds up a plastic bag. “Just some sandwiches.”

He does that. He makes lunch for you, sometimes breakfast. You never take it with you and leave it standing on the kitchen table. You don’t want it. He thinks he has to do that for you, for whatever reason. Like he thinks he had to say ‘sorry’ that one time he caught father hitting you after grandma’s funeral. Like he thinks he has to follow you around everywhere at home, like father won’t touch you when he’s there. Father doesn’t, it’s true, but you don’t _want_ that. It’s John. He’s eleven. He’s still small for eleven. You’re still taller than him. You’re the girl, and you’re older. You’re guilty, and you’re responsible. Not _him_.

He shouldn’t be doing these things. You don’t want him to be doing these things. You love him so much, and he’s ruining himself because of you. Sometimes it hurts, loving him so much. Sometimes you’re afraid it will break you. Sometimes you think that’s what love does, breaking people. It’s like a wave, pulling you under. If father ever loved mother, or you, or John, then that’s what love does. Then love breaks people.

“It’s fine, you can have it yourself,” you tell him. You shrug.

You want to say thank you, but you don’t.

“But.” John scowls. “I made it for you.”

“I know,” you say. You need to swallow. You make yourself say, “But I don’t want it.”

You’ve never said it to his face before. You want to take it back, but you don’t.

Ellie and Lily are quiet by your side. They know John, and they know you, but they don’t know _about_ you. They don’t know what this is. They’re just looking at you like you’re mean. You are.

They don’t _know_.

“But you didn’t eat this morning,” John says, pushy the way he gets when he thinks he’s right. He’s shaking the bag at you. “You need to eat.”

 _Oh, John,_ you think.

You don’t have the heart to tell him to drop it. You don’t touch the food he makes for you with his little, clumsy hands. You don’t touch either breakfast or lunch, not once, and when he’s following you around, you ignore him. (Sometimes you feel like you’re his captain, in the game you used to play, when you were the captain and he’d follow you. You’re not playing anymore.) You notice he’s started talking less to you when you do it, like he doesn’t understand. Gretel never treated Hansel like that. But John doesn’t know that Gretel would have, if it would’ve saved Hansel. He’s still too young. He’s just eleven. And he’s the smallest of his class. He hates it when you call him small.

Your throat burns. You think whatever you didn’t swallow was fire.

“You need to stop telling me what to do,” your mouth is saying. Your hands are reaching for the fag behind your ear. You’ve never smoked one before. It makes you look different, when you have it in your mouth, and you like that. Your hand puts them into your mouth now. Something inside you is saying ‘no’ but your hands are moving anyway.

There seems to be more distance between you and John all of a sudden, like the ground has stretched. You see a bit of your leg, and it’s unnaturally large, out of proportion. John is even smaller than usual. He stands very far away, behind one of these invisible heat waves that pop up in summer and make the background shudder and move. John is shuddering, John is moving.

Your mouth says, “You’re just a midget.”

John doesn’t like it when you call him small. You’re teasing him when you do it, and he knows. You’ve never called him a midget before. You’re not teasing now. You want to. You can’t.

John needs to stay small. He can’t be taller than you. If he’s taller, father will see him more.

You blink, and you’re outside your body at the sidelines watching John and you. You’re not standing far apart. John, with his friends a head bigger than he, holding out a bag of food. You, tall and gangly, leaning back against Ellie with a fag in your mouth. You’re different. He’s a kid. You’ve got a fag in your mouth.

When you blink next, you’re back inside your body, and you’re cold. The sun is shining.

John’s face changes, and everything moves back into clear-cut focus. He’s white. His eyes are large. His lips are parted. He’s staring at you as if he hasn’t seen you before. You want to take his hand, see if he’s trembling. You want to put him in bed and curl around him like an octopus. He’d still be small against you.

John stares at you, but the words are still there. _Midget. I don’t want it. You need to stop telling me what to do._ They hang between you, can’t be taken back. They’re permanent, an invisible wall that changes sight. You’ll always see them now.

John can’t stare them away. After a moment, his hand drops to his side, and the bag dangles from his fingers. You know he’ll toss it into the next bin. John’s mouth closes. Something in his eyes changes, as if someone draws the shutters of a house closed.

You’re not standing far apart. You couldn’t be further apart.

When John says, “All right,” stiffly, and walks just as stiffly away from you, it almost feels like it was worth it.


End file.
